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Prologue
“Wake her up.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. She has a concussion and severe burns over 15% of her body.”
“Do what I said.”
The doctor looked from his patient to Michael and back again. After a moment, he went to the wheeled medical cart, removed a hypodermic, and slid the needle into the IV port to inject the drug. In less than 10 seconds, the patient’s eyes were fluttering.
“You might only get a few minutes,” the doctor explained. Michael nodded. “And this could kill her.”
“Then she dies.” The doctor’s jaw fell open. “Get out.” He hesitated. “Now.” The doctor fled.
Michael walked over to the edge of the bed. The woman was uncovered on the bed, exposing more of her naked body. He wasn’t interested in it in any way other than clinical. Moist bandages covered recent burns on her upper body and head. All her hair had been shaved off—that which hadn’t been burned off, anyway. He wished they’d just let her drowned, but Gabriel wanted answers.
“You awake yet?” he spoke. When there was no response, he reached over to one of the moist bandages and laid a hand firmly on top. Her eyes shot open with a gasping scream. “Ah, there you are.”
She looked from side to side in the darkened medical bay, from the beeping bio-sign monitor next to the bed, the IV stand dripping into her arm, then up at him. “W-who are you?” she stammered.
“You may call me Michael,” he said. “And you are LTJG Pearl Grange, acting commander of USCGC Boutwell. You took command when your captain succumbed to Strain Delta. Afterward you began assisting the forces off San Diego.” Grange watched him for a moment, her mind hazy from drugs and pain. He was a big man, physically powerful, with ultra-short cut black hair, no facial hair, and despite it being dim—almost dark—in the room, he was wearing sunglasses.
“Are you the one who sank my ship?” He didn’t comment. “Are any of my crew alive?” The sunglasses didn’t waver. “What do you want, damn you?”
“I want to know if you are who I described?”
“Grange, Pearl, USCG, 332339981.”
He grunted. “Good, now tell me what you were doing in the Columbia River a week ago.”
“A week?” her voice croaked. “It’s been week? What about my crew?”
“Answer the question, LTJG.”
Grange’s mind was still buzzing, but more of her memory was returning. The fight at the lighthouse. The trip up river. The attack by the gunships, and the missile exploding. Shock, shattering glass, screaming men and women, then fire and agony. So much agony. Then she felt the slap of water, and darkness followed. Until now.
“Where...is...my...crew?” She spoke slowly and deliberately, as if she was talking to a child.
“What were you doing in the Columbia River? Who’s orders were you following? Who’s in command of this flotilla?” She felt herself slipping into darkness, her vision like a tunnel.
“Go to hell,” she said, the last word a whisper.
Michael sighed, looking from the unconscious form to the life signs monitor. Her pulse was elevated but slowing. She’d survived the brief questioning, but the stimulants the good doctor had administered had worn off. He walked to the door and pulled it open. The doctor spun on him, eyes wide in surprise. “Your patient is still alive,” he said. The doctor gave a little nod. “I want her healed.”
“I’ll take that as your authorization for the supplies?”
“You’ll have it.” He walked out and turned down the hall.
“What then?” the doctor asked. “I said, what then?” he yelled after Michael’s retreating back.
Michael passed through three security doors, all guarded, then down an elevator, getting off at the bottom floor. Two guards waited there. Both checked his identification, despite that fact that nobody on the ship would fail to identify him. Cleared, he walked down the short corridor, turning at the biohazard sign, and into a room. The space was filled from top to bottom with computers and monitors.
“Good afternoon, Michael,” the only person in the room, a woman, said. She had three large screens arrayed in from of her covered in strange symbols. She was quite old, with waist-length hair gone completely white held in a single tie at the back of her head. Despite her advanced age, her eyes were bright blue and spoke of extreme intelligence. Like everyone on the ship, she wore a simple blue coverall, however, like only a few, hers had a seven-sided symbol with a stylized double helix in the center.
“How are you proceeding, Jophiel?”
“Slowly,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh so slowly.”
“Let me see it,” he said, and pointed to the only wall not covered in monitors or computer hardware. Jophiel shrugged and touched a control. The wall became a window. On the other side was a cell the same size as the observation room. Its sole occupant reclined in a small self-supporting hammock in one corner, apparently asleep. As if it knew the wall had been made transparent, tiny black eyes popped open. The pointy snouted head turned slightly to look at him.
“How do we know it can’t understand us?” Michael asked.
“Because aliens only understand English in bad science fiction films. I’m a linguist; it isn’t easy to fool me. She’s had numerous opportunities to respond in a way that would benefit her or give away some truths. Never once.”
“Why do the egg heads always think aliens aren’t smart enough to fool them?” Michael responded. He regarded the alien through the thick plexiglass. The bioseal was perfect, or at least as perfect as mankind was capable of manufacturing. “Why should we trust it?”
“Her.”
“Huh?”
“Her,” Jophiel said and gestured to the alien apparently watching them through the carefully mirrored window. “She is a female.”
“Well,” Michael said, “we’re running out of time and need answers.” The alien hopped gracefully from the hammock and padded to the window. With its stooped posture, reversed knees, reddish snout, and bushy tail, it really did look like a terrestrial fox. It was half his size and looked up to his face. It really must have been able to see though the glass. “The rest of the Septagon will be here in a few hours, and then we’ll have to decide what to do about this flotilla. If LTJG Grange doesn’t give us answers, we’ll have to find them somewhere else.”
On the other side of the glass, the alien fox stared. The two regarded each other, calculating, and considered what to do next.
* * * * *
Find out more about Mark Wandrey and “The Turning Point” at: http://chriskennedypublishing.com/imprints-authors/mark-wandrey.
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The following is an
Excerpt from Book One of The Darkness War:
Psi-Mechs, Inc.
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Eric S. Brown
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Available Now from Blood Moon Press
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